TCA, vol. 71: CDC under attack.
A shooting at the CDC in Atlanta shows how far the rhetoric has gone.
I’ll pick up with Part 2 of the Swine Flu story next week. This breaking news has me all jumpy and I need to vent.
Last Friday the 8th, I got a text from a friend that read “Run, Hide, Fight”. It was a screenshot from an email blast that was sent out to those on the Emory campus….an active shooting was underway. Since I was home at the time, I turned on the TV and every local station was live streaming about the situation. If you’ve ever been to Atlanta, you may have heard of these streets: Clifton, North Decatur Road, Briarcliff, Houston Mill. I drive these roads every single day and this day, they were shut down to keep people away from the Emory and CDC campuses.
The Emory and CDC campuses are side-by-side and nestled into a lovely residential neighborhood. There are loads of old-growth trees, crepe myrtles, cute houses and parks like Mason Mill and Lullwater Preserve (where you can see the ruins of a early 20th century “power tower”) just steps away from the modern gleaming windows of the CDC.
But the images I saw on the TV screen looked more like this.
When they announced WHERE the gunman was, the CVS pharmacy in Emory Point, I knew immediately that the shooting was targeted to the Centers For Disease Control. The CVS is directly across the street from the CDC entrance, and it’s where many protestors stand with signs that read things like “Centers for Death Counting” and “Vaxx is the Beast Mark”. It’s where the journalists park their camera crew whenever they do a story about the CDC. It’s where you go when you WANT to go to the CDC, but can’t get in.
(All the info about the shooting in the section that follows comes from the AJC). Patrick Joseph White, the shooter, tried to get in first but was turned away at the security gates. I’ve been inside the CDC many times, and the security is legit. First, there is the guard gate where you would stop your car. They take your ID and scan it, they look inside your trunk and make you pop the hood, they run mirrors under your car looking for explosives. If they find anything odd, or you’re not supposed to be there, they send you away. If you make it through and you park, you enter one of the main buildings. There are metal detectors and another round of ID checking to go through. There are biometric scanners for lab entry and any sensitive area of the campus.
Since White couldn’t get in, he went across the street to the CVS where he shot 200 rounds at 6 different CDC buildings across the street. Many windows either shattered or held firm but now had bullet holes in them. Amazingly, no one on the CDC campus was hurt. Dekalb police officer David Rose exchanged gunfire with White, and was himself injured and taken to the hospital. He later passed of his injuries, leaving behind a pregnant wife and two children. White went upstairs to the second floor of the CVS where other officers then found him, and exchanged more gunfire. White died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A total of five guns were found with him and 500 shell casings. All 5 guns belonged to White’s father who indicated that White stole from him by “forcing his way” into a safe where the guns were held.
It has become clear since Friday what White’s motive was: he held strong beliefs that the COVID-19 vaccine caused him to become depressed and suicidal. Statements from White’s neighbors and family members paint a picture of a man in both physical and emotional pain. The 30 year old from Kennesaw, GA had back surgery a decade ago that left him in chronic pain. He lived with his family and did odd jobs for neighbors and would often launch into conspiracy-theory laden rants about vaccines even when vaccines were not being talked about. His father had called 911 several times over the years with concerns about his son’s mental health and possible suicidal ideation, including a call last September that White had stolen one of his father’s guns from a safe and may intend to use it on himself. In fact, his father called 911 at least twice this last Friday. First to alert authorities that his son was suicidal, upset about the COVID-19 vaccine and the recent death of his dog. And then later that day to say that he believed the shooter was his son (hear the audio of that 911 call here).
Depression is a tough thing to deal with. Sometimes there is a very real reason it happens to someone, and sometimes it seems to come out of the blue for no apparent reason at all. Many people are desperate for help with their depression, and sometimes that desperation turns into anger or desire to blame someone or something.
The anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric, so common today, seemed to give White a target to blame.
“From the doctors to the hospitals, to the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies….people make money by keeping Americans sicker”: Secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“The CDC is a cesspool of corruption”… filled with profiteers that harm children in a manner similar to “Nazi death camps”. Secretary of HHS, Robert F Kennedy, Jr.
“Is it hyperbole when I say these people should be in jail? They should be in jail and the key should be thrown away….What Jesus Christ says is that anybody who harms a hair of these little children that it would be better if a millstone was tied around their neck and they were thrown in the deepest part of the ocean and it would be better yet if they had never been born.” Secretary of HHS, Robert F Kennedy, Jr’s thoughts on vaccine scientists. Jesus wept at having his name invoked in this manner.
“It’s a matrix of an interwoven relationships between CDC and FDA and the vaccine industry,….of course the doctors and the AAP and the AMA and the media….They’re all telling us what we know is true is not true….They’re imposing an alternative reality on all of us, a ‘Matrix’ reality, and we’re sitting here and we know it’s all a lie.” Secretary of HHS, Robert F Kennedy, Jr.
That last quote in particular rasises the hair on my neck since it indicates that corruption at every level of the medical industry from the scientists to the government agencies to the doctors to the policy makers to the journalists are all in cahoots to lie to the public and keep America ill. It pisses me off.
I’ll tell you right now, I didn’t go to 10 years of college (total) plus 3 years of indentured servitude post-doctoral training where I worked 60-80 hours a week for little more than minimum wage and then continue to pore over every article that was published about viruses in the 20 years since (just for fun) to then turn around and lie about what I knew. I’ve never received a paycheck from “big pharma” (and if you saw the paychecks I did receive from academia, you’d buy me a damn coffee and give me a cuddle). Even if someone did offer me some amount of money to lie about viruses and hurt the very people I worked so hard to protect, well…. it’s a number I’ve never seen. And EVERY. SINGLE. SCIENTIST. I know feels the exact same way.
So when multi-millionaires like RFK Jr (a man who has made his millions off of grift, scams and fear-mongering) questions the integrity of people like me. Well, I don’t like to curse in this blog, so I’ll just say he can go kick rocks with open toed shoes.
While RFK Jr is definitely stoking this anti-science fire, he did not start it. Mistrust of the medical industry is as old as the medical industry itself, but saw a huge uptick during the pandemic. In a survey given to 400,000+ respondents, trust in doctors and hospitals dropped in every demographic, from 70.5% (April 2020) to 40.1% (January 2024). Those who did not get the COVID vaccine had the highest levels of mistrust.
And we know for a fact that distrust can lead to violence against healthcare workers. Sentiments of distrust, verbal abuse and physical violence against healthcare workers has been on the rise around the world, and has been linked to both negative past experiences and negative portrayals of healthcare on media and social media. The more media that the person consumes (and the worse they feel about it) the more likely they are to act out a violent aggression against a healthcare worker.
This is why the above statements by RFK Jr and his ilk are so problematic. They are not just wrong, they are not just inaccurate, they can incite violence from someone who might already be on the edge. And when these statements start to accrue, they create a new (false) world where doctors and scientists are evil madmen that are the root cause of all your problems. I don’t believe that RFK Jr intends to incite violence (I believe he intends to incite people to send him money, buy his books, or create a narrative where he is more likely to win money from lawsuits he is involved with). But incite violence he has.
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at CDC's Atlanta campus that took the life of officer David Rose. We stand with his wife and three children and the entire CDC family.” Secretary of HHS, Robert F Kennedy, Jr.
Which is why it’s so ridiculous that RFK Jr showed up at the CDC on Monday with a dumb “thoughts and prayers” style statement, as he walked around an empty campus. Empty except for the CDC and ex-CDC employees who came to protest his visit and loudly boo at him. Empty because the CDC employees were told to work from home this week and telecommute, they were also told not to make themselves obvious. They should not wear CDC employee identifiers and take any CDC labeled stickers or labels off their cars. Because they might be targets for violence.
Violence he himself incited.
One angry CDC employee said: “This man has been verbally attacking and sowing seeds of distrust against CDC and CDC employees for two decades…. He tweeted about his fishing vacation in Alaska on Friday and Saturday before he made any statement about the attack, and then showed up today with a bunch of bodyguards, and on a day most staff were teleworking, to tour an active crime scene,”. Tots and Pears, Bobby. Tots and Pears.
The hero of this story is Officer David Rose who undoubtedly saved a lot of lives on Friday. A GoFundMe to help support his wife and family can be found here, and is currrently close to $400,000 at the time of this writing. It describes Rose as “more than a dedicated public servant - He was a loving father, a devoted husband, a cherished brother, and a loyal friend. His kindness, courage, and unwavering commitment to his family and community touched the lives of everyone who knew him.”
Stay happy, healthy and informed,
Jessica at TCA